


Flip For Him

by seademons



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mental Anguish, Pale-Red Vacillation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 22:15:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12780708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seademons/pseuds/seademons
Summary: “You’ve been thinking about it, too.”“Yes,” he answered, because what else would he answer?





	Flip For Him

**Author's Note:**

> Song rec for this: [You by Greta Isaac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3VaaNC6a0E).

Dammek’s hand found his thigh, loosely, a palm just above the knee. He was used to it by now, it didn’t alarm him anymore, not this far into their moirallegiance. It meant nothing but a fleeting act to draw his attention at this point, even if, initially, the first time, it had gotten a jump out of him. It had made him wary to the extent of paranoia. It had wormed its way into his dreams, into his brain, into his heart, putting the tetrarch under a different kind of light, one that he had never seen Dammek in before, one that colored him red and had his gaze burn on the skin, his hands so warm, his mouth desirable. It had scared Xefros to another realm of reality, his own thoughts and wishes had started to become questionable, worrisome, because, maybe, he wasn’t all that pale for his palemate. Maybe he wasn’t all that right for this, he couldn’t trust himself, he wasn’t cut for this. A lifetime in and he had started to doubt himself.

But that was all back when the tetrarch had touched his thigh for the first time. He was far over it now, entirely outgrown.

“Look.”

Dammek had his phone up, a bright screen cutting through the darkness of the empty room. It hit Xefros’ eyes like the beam of a lighthouse when the screen was turned to him, making his eyes squint out of instinct, his brows furrow some. On it read something hieroglyphic using part of the troll alphabet that he still wasn’t educated enough to know what it meant, and his brain fried to understand it. Dammek shifted closer to him, the pile of clothes around them moved. The hand on his thigh pressed down onto it. He drew a blank on the bright text before his very eyes, burning his retinas into crisps, his attention suddenly not on it anymore.

“They don’t have anywhere better than that pub. It says so right here.”

He failed to read the text by himself and decided on trusting the tetrarch for this one, not to his loss, since Dammek would never lie to him. That was a fact, carved in stone, stated in Law, absolutely ridiculous to suspect or believe otherwise. In silence, he nodded, and the phone was turned away from him, the glow of the screen illuminating Dammek’s face now, shining straight into the warm copper of his eyes, nearly causing them to look gold. Surrounded by semi-complete darkness, he didn’t wear sunglasses. The hand on thigh remained, casual, firm as stone.

“Do you think it’s wise to stop looking into it?” He asked, small and soft, the timbre of his voice a juxtaposition to the quietness of the room. The tetrarch clicked his tongue in reply and the faux gold of his eyes was mesmerizing.

“For now, I guess.”

He leaned forward, fully enveloped in a trance, the sort to have his heart beating stronger, his eyes doubling up in size. This change of color, this illusion to the mind, he needed to see it from closer up. The vacillating hue of the tetrarch’s eyes was something that he had had the utmost privilege to observe as they grew up, the dull gray fading into a warm shade of copper from childhood to adulthood and the alternating qualities of that color, so metallic that light and darkness changed it as they touched it. Redder at sunset, orange-looking at sunrise, and dark brown at night, but never gold, not like this. Never seeming to be a caste higher above than it had been born into.

The eyes that he scrutinized glanced over to him, fixed themselves on his face, away from the screen, one gold, one brown. He exhaled as Dammek blankly watched him, something about the sight just feeling right in his gut now. The illusion was broken and the tetrarch’s eyes were, truly and irrevocably, orange-brown, red-orange, copper. Copper. The two vampiresque fangs resting over Dammek’s bottom lip glinted with the brightness of the screen, solely illuminating their shared pile in the otherwise pitch-black room, catching a fragment of his attention now that the mystery had been demystified. The tetrarch usually had the curtains drawn, living in an abyssal room, something about societal privacy.

“What’s on your mind?” Dammek asked. His voice felt quieter this time around.

Xefros opened his mouth to answer but the tetrarch cut him off.

“You’ve been thinking about it, too.”

His mouth closed speechlessly and the words that had been on his tongue melted, and slid down his throat, like Adderall when he fussed, and fussed, and took too long, and ultimately couldn’t swallow it whole. He wasn’t sure what the tetrarch meant by that; his thoughts were near-exclusively on him, always, never really much on anything else. He had no real reason to think of anything else, and Dammek knew this, too. Was the question a test?

“Yes,” he answered, because what else would he answer? His heart beat faster and he just hoped to have said the right thing. The tetrarch didn’t show an expressive response to that, his eyes simply dropped down some, for the fraction of a second, then met with Xefros’ again, wider this time around, full of an unidentified energy that had Xefros very duly considering it. He couldn’t crack it, his brain didn’t always work, but he didn’t have to crack it. Dammek did it for him, leaning forward, swiftly closer, suddenly too close, until all he could see was the gray of Dammek’s skin, and his thick dark lashes, eyes closed, followed by the feeling of a mouth on his own. He tensed. Two sharp fangs over a pair of the softest lips in the known universe pressed against his own, briefly unresponsive mouth before he kissed back.

Of course he kissed back.

He had never actually, sincerely considered _this_ to ever be a possible reality between the two of them, even if he had thought about it. A lot about it. The hands on his thighs, on his arm, on his palm, the arms across his shoulders, around his neck, their growing closeness, stifling at first, but so reassuring a second later, present and tangible and real, there, Dammek’s presence at his side, constantly at his side, never leaving, never deserting. His rock, his haven, his certainty. Even now, the hand on his thigh grew a firmer hold onto it, gripping it as they kissed. Even now, he thought, well, this shouldn’t have been surprising. This outcome should’ve been foreseen a long time ago, maybe, with how their interactions had been progressing. He just had never thought that the tetrarch would ever feel this way about him. Though, he had never thought that the tetrarch would’ve ever felt ashen for him, either.

He closed his eyes. Some moirails kissed each other, and it was fine, it was all good, it didn’t mean anything that it shouldn’t mean, even though he didn’t actually know any who did that, or touched each other too much, or were too physically close. He just, kind of, supposed that they existed. It couldn’t have been that unheard of. This might not even have been a red thing, what they were doing. Maybe the tetrarch was so fully pale for him that this was only a result of it. A natural result of it, nothing wrong with it, nothing to worry about. His eyes squeezed.

The lips that pressed onto his own parted, and kissed harder, sharp fangs harmlessly digging into the meat of his lips, not breaking the skin, not making him hurt. He brought a hand up, tentatively, to touch the side of Dammek’s face, trembling fingertips brushing along the jaw and dipping into hair. Moirails kissed, and it was fine. Dammek’s tongue found his top lip, the fangs tugged onto his skin, and tongue met tongue over the most unique feeling. He barely knew how to respond to it, but Dammek took the lead, and held his hand through it, lapping at his tongue and dragging on his palate. It sent shivers down his back, pushed him to sit upright, and the tetrarch to move with him. The tetrarch, moving _with_ him. He wasn’t sure why that infinitesimal detail made him feel so warm, so suddenly. His shaky hands held onto the back of Dammek’s neck, firmer, as an act to steady himself. He was falling.

The hand on his thigh gripped it closer to the hips now, Dammek’s thumb on the inner portion of it, his palm warm over the fabric of Xefros’ pants. His heart skipped a beat, his blood ran cold, it boiled his veins raw. Dammek kissed him harder, deeper, tugging and sucking on his lips as his eyes rolled back on their own, and the hand in Dammek’s hair closed around a fistful of it, not pulling. He felt good, strangely, but not surprisingly, and he liked it, maybe too much, he liked this. He _liked_ this. Warm, hot, with a heart practically leaping out of his throat, he kissed back, not confident, however enthusiastic, while worryingly considering the hand on his thigh to move further up. It was a concerning thought that made itself at peace with his conscience a little too quickly. If Dammek was fine with it, he was fine with it, was his reasoning. Maybe this wasn’t all red.

No, this wasn’t red at all. This wasn’t red at all.

Dammek kissed him harder and pushed his head back, his torso back, with the force of his enthusiasm, until Xefros reached a wall, and leaned on it, was sandwiched between it and the tetrarch and he told himself, this wasn’t red at all. Dammek’s tongue made him pant, the hand on his thigh, gripping it so firmly, fingertips digging into the meat of it, over his pants, round nails denting the fabric, caused his legs to absently drift apart and a sort of concerning interest grow in his boxers with _only_ the prospects of this running line. The prospect of that hand inching closer, and closer, and where he wanted it to be. He couldn’t breathe, suddenly. This was so much, but he didn’t _want_ that hand anywhere. Nowhere Dammek didn’t want to put it, anyway. He swallowed Dammek’s tongue around a choked out sound and tried to steer clear of the overthinking nebula commanding his mind. It refused to renounce.

This wasn’t red, he told himself. This wasn’t red. They weren’t flipping.

Dammek moved closer, pushed some of the pile out of the way with his free hand, fully faced Xefros now, sitting in between his knees, their mouths perpetually locked together in Xefros’ first kiss. A long, euphoric, scalding kiss that had him breathless, gripping onto the back of Dammek’s head as a lifeline, feeling the hand on his thigh move further up, finally, finally further up where thigh met hip and the tetrarch grabbed the crease there, pulled him closer, dragged him up onto his lap some, the underside of his thighs resting on the front of Dammek’s own. He burned. This was pale, the resonance in his pants was pale, the white-hot excitement in his veins was absolutely pale. This desire wasn’t dipped in crismon, this desire wasn’t… He breathed in. The tetrarch broke the kiss.

He immediately missed those lips.

“This, objectively, is…?”

Fill in the gap. He had one right choice to make, there was only one right answer to give. He knew what it was, there was no other, yet, still, it filled his chest with ice cold fear, because, maybe, he’d get it wrong, somehow. He wouldn’t, but he could. He could. He licked his lips, wanted to kiss the tetrarch some more, have the tetrarch’s hands on his body, warmer, hotter, where it burned. His palm was glued to the nape of Dammek’s neck and refused to move. His nails there dented the skin, he felt it on the tip of his fingers.

“Acceptable.” He answered through an exhale and the weight of the world rolled off of his back with it.

The tetrarch regarded him in silence in response to that and his heart skipped a beat, self-doubt suddenly started to rot his insides. He couldn’t have gotten that wrong, not when Dammek had initiated it, not when Dammek had a hand on his ass, not when the crotch of his pants made him so uncomfortable, unless this was a test. This entire thing, a test. How far their moirallegiance would take them. He had gotten this wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way for the tetrarch at all; this wasn’t pale in the slightest and he had committed treason of the worst kind. He had tried to break the perfect pattern of their quadrants and shift them mindlessly around and would have to pay for that now. His gullible instincts, his childish eagerness, his hindering virginity. He’d pay for ever thinking that the tetrarch would actually be red for him.

“Acceptable.” Dammek echoed, quietly, but surely. Always, always surely. “Exactly.” A nod.

A nod that had his shoulders dropping and his soul collapsing. He could’ve passed right out with the overwhelming relief of it, he leaned back onto the wall. So he wasn’t a traitor or a complete and utter embarrassment to witness, not before the tetrarch, and that was all that mattered. Maybe he was fine to feel this way, to want Dammek’s hands in his pants, to have Dammek’s lips on his neck. Maybe this was fine, and ashen, and good. His hand loosened on Dammek’s neck and touched the skin there absently, freely, something he had never done before, had never felt appropriate to do. His hand rounded to the side of Dammek’s neck, touching his pulse, skirting down to rest on his collarbone, trace it underneath the collar of his shirt.

This had no negative repercussions. It didn’t have the tetrarch pushing him away, slapping his hand off, or berating him in any way, and he noticed that immediately. Touching the tetrarch didn’t put him in trouble. He almost, _almost_ smiled, and would have, if the warm feeling in his chest hadn’t caught his attention in the middle of it all.

He liked this, and from the looks of it, he was doing it right, too. A first for him.

Dammek just watched him and there was something on his face, something Xefros couldn’t recognize, something he couldn’t name, something unsettling that made him reconsider his nice thoughts about all of this. Something that made his heart leap, but he couldn’t place it. He couldn’t seize it. Before he tried to, Dammek dipped forward and sealed their lips together again, made his eyes close instantly, made him lean into it and the thoughts in his mind dissipate completely. He grabbed Dammek’s collar, pulled him closer, reveled in the feeling of their lips pressed together, the tongue back on his own, his heart beating warmer. His entire body, warmer. The pit of his stomach on fire.

A few fingers slipped under the waistband of his pants and boxers combined, knuckles on his skin, dragging along the length of it over to the front of his body, making his legs jerk up with the suddenness of it, his knees bent at each side of Dammek’s ribcage. The hand paused there, dipped further in, three knuckles deep into his underwear, fingertips just about brushing the topmost portion of his bulge, already swollen, but still half-tucked, sending shivers up his back and pushing something up his throat to die muffled on Dammek’s tongue. He wanted this. His thighs spread minutely apart, too shy to make a noticeable effort, while he burned on the inside, gripping tighter onto the collar of Dammek’s shirt. At this point, it didn’t bother him that he might’ve been feeling a little too red for his palemate, that this entire thing was probably a bit too red to stay within their quadrant, that he actively _wanted_ this to happen. That he had fantasized about this way before it ever happened, guiltily sticking his hands down his pants, red-faced and shameful for ever, _ever_ thinking of his moirail in such a sinful light, for ever considering anything past their non-sexual relationship. He was guilty and disgusting and unworthy of this, but, apparently, he wasn’t alone in it. Apparently, the tetrarch was right there beside him.

Of course the tetrarch was right for this to happen, though, in the first place. He was right to do this, it was all ashen anyway, whatever he decided to be ashen was, and Xefros would literally never fight him on it. His word was indisputable Law and Xefros would obey it, fully and wholly and if that meant playing out his shameful dreams, then, well. Well. He wouldn’t object to it. He, in fact, would be the last to object to it.

Dammek yanked his pants and boxers down his thighs from the front, manhandling his legs around to get them properly off, and, despite any self-consciousness bubbling inside himself, always and ever since childhood, he tried not to mind it, tried not to let it get to him. Tried his best to look impassive instead of a shy, blushing mess, even if he couldn’t meet with Dammek’s eye or really keep his chin up. In partial darkness, that probably didn’t matter, however much they were able to see each other from the dim light of Dammek’s phone, discarded on the ground next to the two of them. He hoped it’d lock soon and swallow them in pitch black so he wouldn’t have to see the tetrarch spread his thighs apart and silently regard him without a single expression on his face, usually even more blank behind a pair of sunglasses. He glanced off to the side, feeling his cheeks pump hot on his face. His feet absently shifted closer to his thighs. To make it worse (for himself, subjectively better to the tetrarch) he pulled the hem of his shirt up some, just the enough to show off a portion of his belly because he remembered a comment from the tetrarch praising its softness sometime ago. It had made him sheepish at the time, but he had never forgotten it. He just hoped it wouldn’t be counterproductive now, even if he felt absolutely disgusting doing it.

Dammek touched his waist with a hand, grabbed the softness there before reaching his free one down, and Xefros didn’t look. He shut his eyes, only felt the pads of Dammek’s fingers on sensitive skin, running along the bulge, down to where it tucked, making him shudder, making his thighs quiver, his breathing hitch and get stuck midway up his throat. The fingers rubbed, pressing onto the skin, prodding and flirting with where it tucked, pushing and trying to slip in, and he panted, already so loud, so heavy, eyes shut closed trying to keep his composure. A finger managed to slip in between the folds and the bulge and immediately pushed further in, slid down the nook, rubbing it, pressuring the folds, making a beeline for the entrance. His brows furrowed, he felt it on his forehead, and this wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t wait for the tetrarch to push in, get more fingers together, feel him up where it was warm. He sighed, eyes perpetually closed, face turned to the side, bit his lip when three knuckles slipped past the entrance, making the bulge untuck instantly, twisting onto itself. His legs trembled. This felt better than what he had fantasized of it.

More fingers joined the first and he tried not to be vocal about it, tried to keep it down, muffling whatever escaped onto his own lips, into his own mouth. Dammek pushed and spread and rubbed and his head rolled back, his brows hurt on his forehead. This was so much. His toes curled, his legs tensed, his hands fidgeted; his entire body wanted to move, wanted more, wanted to convulse, wanted to _get_ to the point of convulsing. It felt far different to have Dammek’s fingers inside him than his own. It was the unpredictability of it, the lack of control, the power of decision solely and entirely on the tetrarch, and it made him hot on the face with how much he liked it. How much better it made getting off. This was a lot different rush than the one that he got when doing it himself, only _thinking_ of this exact scenario, but he’d never admit to how many times that had actually happened. Consciously happened, not eventually turned into. He was ashamed to even broach that subject.

Dammek didn’t waste a lot of time with the fingers, and soon relocated them to his own pants instead, pulling them down his thighs, freeing his untucked bulge. Xefros opened his eyes to glance at it with the sort of passing interest that would hit him in full not too long after, but that, now, his brain was too loud to regard without immediately wanting it inside, buried to the hilt, _that_ being his only thought, flashing before his own eyes, repeating itself through the intersections of his mind over and over and over again. His nook pulsed at the mere imagination of it as Dammek took his thighs and put them where he wanted them to be. Xefros rested on both of his palms, one on each side of himself, with his shoulders on the wall, not very comfortable, but this seemed to be the tetrarch’s wish, so he unquestionably followed it. Dammek locked Xefros’ legs around himself and closed the gap between their hips, bulge finding nook and pushing in with the sort of ease comparable to key and lock. Xefros groaned, his body shivered. This already felt better than all of his fingers united. Fingertips dug into the meat of his thighs, Dammek breathed into his hair, and his legs squeezed, he shivered some more.

The bulge moved. It touched and rubbed and squirmed around, it stretched him out, it had his breathing completely ragged and small, unavoidable moans escaping from the back of his throat. His back tried to arch off the wall but it just made him meet with the tetrarch’s chest instead, his face tilting up to fit on the crook of Dammek’s neck, to hide itself there, so his embarrassment wouldn’t be witnessed. Dammek, huffing and sighing into his hair, drew back some, and thrusted, slapping hip on hip and causing a sound or two to be muffled on gray skin, Xefros’ lips pressed flat to his tetrarch’s neck. His legs quivered under the firm hold of Dammek’s hands, his knees anchored themselves to the bottom of Dammek’s ribs and remained locked in place, reassuring their closeness as hips started to meet frequently, with some rhythm now, and it burned. He was melting. His veins were erupting, he was so warm, he felt so full. His nails dug into the carpet when he wanted them on the body before him, but he needed balance, he needed to support himself upright for this, and he was doing something. For once, he was helping.

Bulge found seed flap and he bit Dammek’s collar bone. His brows hurt, knit wholly together now, as he groaned and moaned onto Dammek’s skin, his own hips bucking forward in response to that, out of complete instinct, making Dammek muffle something into his hair, his warm breath heating up the side of Xefros’ head. This was bliss. This, he thought, very strongly and very pointedly to himself, he thought, this was worth flipping for. God, this was worth flipping for. Bulge rubbed on seed flap and his head threw itself back, a gross, low moan left the deepest ends of his throat. He shut his mouth immediately, and his eyes remained closed, just in case the tetrarch happened to be looking at his disgusting face. He pressed his lips together, arched off the wall; his exposed belly met with Dammek’s shirt, and his vulnerable neck received Dammek’s fangs, lips kissing the skin, the fangs entirely harmless. Dammek’s hands squeezed his thighs, the bulge pushed and stretched and squirmed around his walls and he shuddered, his face pumped red, this was the best that the tetrarch had ever made him feel. His heart ached with it, his body yearned for it, he was burning up. He could barely even breathe; every breath was an inhale and nothing ever came out, he was choking, and it was the best feeling in the world. He could die like this, he hoped to die like this.

A hand left the carpet and grabbed Dammek’s waist, blunt nails sunk into his shirt, pulled him closer, stupidly closer, as if two bodies could merge with one another, even if their hips damn near tried to. His other hand hurt, his arm trembled, and he wouldn’t stay on it for much longer, especially not without the other hand there to ease off some weight. He was dumb, didn’t think this through, only turned his face to Dammek’s head and tried to hide it there, cheek on cheek, nose on cheek. Dammek smelled of oranges and peaches and he just now realized how much he loved oranges and peaches and would never, ever wish for anything else.

Dammek pulled their hips closer, buried himself deeper, and every inch further in filled Xefros up, every stretch of the walls sent shivers like electricity up his spine, every rub of the seed flap had him bucking into Dammek’s hips, his nook dripping with genetic material, his legs growing weaker, his thighs quivering, his own pulse beating loud in his ears, on his face, his body about a million degrees too hot. He squirmed, his hips moved on their own, dug themselves hard into Dammek’s lap, had the tetrarch breathing hot on his neck and carving nails into his ass, pulling him closer, holding him there. He loved it, he groaned from it, panting loud, feeling warm, his skin about to melt off and his heart about to break free. His bulge twisted around itself, rubbed itself on the bodies that sandwiched it, making a mess of his stomach and the hem of Dammek’s shirt. Dammek groaned into his skin and he shuddered immediately; nothing was more exciting than being useful for the tetrarch, and getting him off was extremely flattering. He almost felt undeserving of such praise.

His arm gave in and he slid down the wall some, but not much, inadvertently pushing against the tetrarch, having the bulge inside him hit his seed flap fully on, drawing an embarrassing moan out of him, one that escaped so mindlessly that he almost didn’t notice it had come from him at all. He bit his lip with the realization of it, though, his knees squeezed Dammek’s sides in an attempt at closing his legs, and he was officially close to the edge. His eyes shut, and his back hurt like this, but he didn’t care as long as the tetrarch didn’t stop. Dammek took his upper arm and yanked him upright, up so their faces were on one another, a hard kiss to seal him wordless. He didn’t mind that, in fact, he loved it; he kissed the mouth in front of him with a sort of zest almost foreign to him, almost confident, almost entirely unlike him, that was how close he was. He kissed with claw and hunger and Dammek was right there with him, perfectly in step with it, thrusting forward when his hips slammed down. It was Heaven; if Heaven existed, it was this. A hand grabbed the tetrarch by the face, the other clung to his back, fisted in his shirt, their mouths aggressively ate at one another and their hips constantly met, so hard that Xefros could feel his belly shake with it. If he weren’t just flirting with the edge, he’d have been self-conscious to the point of covering himself up.

He whined and breathed and choked into Dammek’s mouth, bit his tongue, swallowed his sounds, and he was so close, so close, he could’ve cried. Dammek brought a hand to his bulge, squeezed it, stroked it, made his entire body squirm. He should warn him, he thought. He should say something, let him know, a word, anything, _something,_ and he tried to. He tried choking it out, all broken up in between their kissing, muffled on Dammek’s lips, severed words from an incomprehensible sentence slipped down Dammek’s throat as his best shot at a thoughtful warning but probably needless because the tetrarch must’ve already known. He must’ve known. Xefros’ legs squeezed to close, Xefros’ nook squeezed to close, and nothing about him was hard to read. He kissed with a sob on his lips and Dammek mercifully finished him off.

The feeling was ethereal, indescribable, transcendental. His nook pulsed something so violent that he staggered from it, his thighs quivered in time with it, every one of it, in a series of surges that had him pitifully mewling onto Dammek’s tongue, body shuddering and lungs filling up with air, finally, after what had felt to be drowning in hedonism. He drank Dammek’s groans, pulsing around him, delicious and unashamed, pushing the tetrarch to climax, too, and fill him up completely. His hand squeezed Dammek’s face, his thighs locked around his waist. He had never felt something like this, genetic material filling his nook and stretching his walls and not actually pouring out, but remaining inside. He shivered, this was different. Dammek’s hands loosened on his body and he pulled out, leaned back, broke the kiss. Xefros slowly removed his hands from the tetrarch. It hit him like a wave, and he suddenly understood what buckets were for. They’d need one.

This was weird, he felt weird. The room was dark and he couldn’t see the tetrarch but he knew that he was being watched, he felt it, even if it wasn’t objectively true, he knew it, and he didn’t like it. He moved out of Dammek’s lap and sat down on the carpet, bloated and uncomfortable and blushing and thinking this hadn’t been a good idea, not anymore. Not this far in. He heard the tetrarch shuffling about, probably leaving, probably done with him now, and, suddenly, there was light. Bright, burning light. He squinted hard, almost put a hand up to block the source of it, but it was just Dammek’s phone, and face, and round, shimmering, golden eyes locked on him, softly watching him. He stared back, speechless, but with something painful in his throat choking him alive that he couldn’t explain in words, or sounds, or really understand it himself. It hurt, it scared him, he didn’t know what it was, but Dammek leaned forward, and closed his eyes, and kissed him again, soft and gentle and he breathed in. The lump was gone. He grabbed the tetrarch’s face and kissed him grateful.

They pulled apart, and their eyes met, gold on rust. The way that Dammek looked at him made him change his mind about this. It had been a good idea, in the end. Pale or red, it didn’t matter; it had been a good idea.

**Author's Note:**

> Plot: [Of Devotion and Rage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13130025/chapters/30036360), which is the immediate continuation of this.


End file.
